2011: A Year In Review

This was the year I fell in love.
This was the year my whole perspective shifted.
This was the year I worked out where, how, when and why as far as my future is concerned.

To write this review I am relying heavily on my journal, my memory and the scattered notes I leave to myself far too often. I will begin with my resolutions for the year:

Looking at them now I was definitely aiming too high:

• ·      Start yoga
• ·      Try stand up comedy
• ·      Continue writing songs
• ·      Learn to paint
• ·      Investigate the family tree
• ·      Find a mantra
• ·      Grow hair
• ·      Quit Facebook
• ·      Take up jogging
• ·      Play more gigs
• ·      Go to more gigs
• ·      Learn to play piano
• ·      Study Judaism
• ·      Study French
• ·      Watch the IMDB Top 100 Films
• ·      Drink more whiskey
• ·      Stop wasting time
• ·      Always carry a notebook
• ·      Finish the first episode of sitcom
• ·      Write a musical
• ·      Dress bohemian

To be fair some of those aren’t really resolutions at all. More a reminder to try and stay true to myself which after a year spent in counselling I have realised cannot be taught to me via the medium of post-it notes. Writing them up now makes me realise that I have completed more than I had intended. Although I haven’t started yoga I do turn to breathing exercises to clear my head and get things in perspective, I have drunk quite a lot of whiskey this year, I do dress fairly bohemian on occasion. I’m going to break the year down into months and hopefully drop in the points where these resolutions came into play.

January

I managed to kick the whole smoking thing which had been a bane of my life for about six years, I’m no angel and I can still be coaxed back in but I think that is just what they call trial and error. I started watching the top 100 films including a date to go and see Black Swan with a beautiful young lady who was mildly shocked at the lesbian scene and I had to pretend I didn’t know it was there before I booked the tickets. According to my diary it was also the month I bought a duffel coat, trying to be directed by Ayoade no doubt.

February

I went back to what I guess you could call my archive of music. I listened to every recording I’d ever made, silly little demos in flats and bedrooms through to my dalliances in the studio and I was amazed at what I had managed to turn out. This was the start of my self appreciation. It made me realise that you shouldn’t just turn off something just because it doesn’t turn others on, if you’re getting the goods out of doing it then continue, unabated and firmly attached by the heartstrings. It was also the month my band had their first gig, a gig that we got paid for as well, the money disappeared off into the night but the success hung around longer than the hangover. I spent Valentines Day drinking gin and watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; which has become a tradition, this was the first year I had someone to do it with though. I turned 24 and the usual panic about growing old set in. I had spent years comparing myself to heroes who had early success and died far too soon. The big thing this year was that James Dean died at 24, with three Hollywood films tucked carefully into his Levis and I thought I had done nothing.

March

I was rushed into hospital with heart palpitations and chest pains. For a couple of days after I was pretty sure I was going to die. It scared the crap out of me. It made me appreciate just how precious and insignificant life is, all the plans that you make can be thrown out completely, it made me realise that I don’t want to die young, there’s no joy or glamour in it, it’s frightening and isn’t as romantic or poetic as I had built it up to be. My godson was born on 28^th, I might be biased but he’s the cutest little boy I’ve ever set my eyes on, I think what made it all the more special is that I had literally been there since the beginning. I was there when Will and Chloe first became a couple, I lived with them for a year after that, I remember trying to dissuade Will from getting engaged for my own selfish reasons that I won’t go into when he had already found the girl he loved and had decided he wanted to marry. I was the best man at their wedding. Then they had this beautiful little boy and I wanted a version of that life for myself, no hedonism, no wasted weekends, just a bit of love.

April

Having split up six months earlier this was the month my parents really went to town on my brain. I realised that the family unit I had grown up in was well and truly over and for a while panicked that it would be the end of everything I had ever known, that I would fall apart, that nobody would have time for me. The truth is that throughout life circumstances change but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a future. The future is different. The future is unwritten.

May

I can pinpoint this month as being when I realised I was in love. I had said it before but May was when it really began to fit into the jigsaw of my life and just be, and it’s a wonderful thing, I highly recommend it. We went to see Hamlet at the Shakespeare Globe for her birthday and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although when I compared it to Lion King I was quickly shut down. It was also the first time I got paid for a piece of writing, a triumphant leap forward as far as my now chosen career goes. I wrote an article on Super Injunctions as a result of the press coverage of certain footballers and their misdemeanours etc and the money disappeared in the chasm that is my bank account.

June

Apparently I didn’t write a single thing in my journal in June. The only thing that mattered about June was going to Glastonbury to be honest. It was a difficult experience to be honest. It had been sold to me as the greatest festival in the world and I have no doubt that if I had been in the right mindset it could have been. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that I got to go and I saw some incredible music but something jarred about it, at times it didn’t feel like I was involved, like I was just hanging above it all, observing, never quite good enough to get in. That sounds so negative, I had a brilliant time, got to spend a weekend in the mud with some of my best friends, got to see Radiohead, Pulp, Bright Eyes, Bombay Bicycle Club, Beyonce, The Vaccines and others. I caught the only bit of sun I would get all year and threw up in a tent. I also started work on a new novel called Situation One.

July

Recorded, edited, uploaded the first episode of the sketch show that has become my home life, realised that my family are funny to people outside of my head. Played the best gig of my life at Chinnerys in Southend, a stage I had watched The Horrors, Cajun Dance Party, Young Knives and Get Cape perform on. It’s something that thankfully is immortalised in video and pictures because I will tell my kids about that. Also another of my University friends got married, Lucy. It was a beautiful day, an amazing thing to be invited to, to be a part of, and an excellent chance to catch up with friends I don’t see often enough. The characters for my novel really fell into place after that, the book is based on my life at Uni so seeing those characters drunk on a boat on the Thames brought the whole thing to life before my eyes and I wrote with a new valour.

August

Went to Brighton for the first time and realised what I had been missing out on, got to pretend I was Pinky in Brighton Rock, got to ride a merry go round for the first time in a decade, ate lobster and calamari like a duke. Realised that being away was what I had needed for far too long, that there was a freedom in it that I had forgotten about, particularly when you’re doing it with someone you love. This was also the month my procrastination took on a new level as I signed up to Tumblr.

September

Not much to report to be honest. Managed to man up and confront my mother about what I had felt about her leaving and what it had meant to me, was much overdue. Hit the 20,000 word mark on my novel which was always the killer point where I would give up, sort of the way the six month mark was the end of any of my previous relationships, maybe I was finally learning. Started attending an improvised comedy workshop with Danny and Sam.

October

Got back in the studio with the band for another four track EP, experimenting with songs that were a near departure from the first EP, making me realise that we still hadn’t really settled on a sound at all, that things are very much up in the air and that if we want to do this we need to sit down and think about all of those pigeon holing little ideas that as an artist you try and avoid, you don’t want to become a package or be represented, you just want to make music, make people dance and have a good time but there is always that marketing bullshit thing. It still lays unresolved.

November

Lost one of my dearest friends at the start of the month. Realised that my changing thoughts on dying young, the 27 club and all encapsulated within was flawed. There is really nothing romantic about it at all, you just constantly wonder why, what could have been. Danny was one of those guys who just always had the flame burning, he was always on the go, the one with the ideas for the future, the motor mouth, loveable and playful and funny. I was lucky that I got to spend so much time with him, most of which was due to the Improv classes he had forced me into so we could spend more time together. My lasting memory therefore is of us drawing attention to ourselves, of being clowns, of laughter. The day that Danny died I had a gig and I got up there and left my heart far behind, I tried so hard because I knew he was there.

December

Performed acoustically at Danny’s wake and started to see my memories turn around, it wasn’t the death anymore, I was moving the good times in around it, appreciating it for what it had been. He is still with me every day, my successes are our successes, I have something I want to talk to him about every single day and the weirdest thing is adjusting to that.

Made more episodes of You & Me & Him & Dad and started to receive some really positive comments about the stupid things we were doing. Spent Christmas from a distance but loving it all the same.

I honestly don’t know how all of that will come off, if I’ll seem pathetic or ungrateful or pretentious or whatever but it’s just something I wanted to note down, to review the review in a years time and see how I have come on. Bill Hicks once said ‘enjoy the ride’ and that’s what I’m beginning to do.